


Icing on the (Cup)Cake

by sylviarachel



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Baking, Based on True Events, Cupcakes, Jack Zimmermann's Birthday, M/M, how is that an actual tag idek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-11 23:08:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11724489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sylviarachel/pseuds/sylviarachel
Summary: August 3, 2016. It's the first time Bitty's been around for Jack's birthday, and they're hosting a party, and Bitty just wants Jack's Falconers-themed birthday cupcakes to beperfect, okay? Is that too much to ask???





	Icing on the (Cup)Cake

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MapleleafCameo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MapleleafCameo/gifts), [turifer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/turifer/gifts).



> So I was meeting [MapleleafCameo](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MapleleafCameo/pseuds/MapleleafCameo) and [turifer](http://archiveofourown.org/users/turifer/pseuds/turifer) for lunch ::squee!!:: on August 3, and in a fit of enthusiasm back in like ... June, decided that the occasion OBVIOUSLY called for Falconers-themed cupcakes. On August 2, I set about baking them. It was ... an adventure. I joked in the group text that I should write a fic about it. CERTAIN PEOPLE encouraged me (and kindly read it and offered suggestions, including the title -- my working title was "Falconers Cupcake Hell").

So the thing about August is, it is _hot_.

Eric knows this. He grew up in _Georgia_ , for crying out loud. And Providence is supposed to be more temperate than Madison, GA, and usually it _is_ , but not this summer, apparently, or at least not today.

The _point_ being that somehow, in the excitement of the occasion, Eric failed to think through the consequences of the fact that Jack’s birthday is in August.

Which is why, at four o’clock in the afternoon on August 2, he is in Jack’s kitchen, covered in sweat and powdered sugar, swearing at an icing bag and wishing he’d never said the word _cupcakes_ even to himself.

See, cupcakes aren’t really Eric’s thing -- that is, he’s perfectly capable of producing a delicious and adequately frosted cupcake, but they don’t flow effortlessly from his hands the way maple-crusted apple mini-pies, for instance, do. But cupcakes, unlike mini-pies, can be decorated and color-coordinated (with a certain someone’s team colors, for example). Cupcakes are just … well, they’re more birthday-ish, is all.

And he’s making them for a birthday party.

 _Jack’s_ birthday party. Which he persuaded Jack to let him have, because this is the first time they’ve gotten to spend Jack’s birthday together as boyfriends that people knew about, and also because he apparently doesn’t have the sense the good Lord gave a grasshopper. Because now that it’s much too late to do anything about it, Eric is really fully realizing that tomorrow this apartment is going to be full of NHL players and their families who are used to _really good_ , _professionally catered_ food, and--

Eric knows he has a tendency to procrastinate, so he’s been trying really hard to be on top of things for this event, because it’s _important_ . He’s tried out a dozen cupcake recipes over the past week, and none of them are _quite_ perfect but this one with the Dutch cocoa and sour milk has the tenderest crumb, so it’ll have to do. He ordered three different brands of gel and paste food colors in at least three shades each of blue and yellow and has been experimenting with them ever since he arrived in Providence, trying to get the Falconers colors just right. He’s got a whole Pinterest board of gorgeously decorated cupcakes, none of which are exactly what he needs but at least he’s got no shortage of ideas.

And instead of scrambling to put the buttercream together and divide and color it in the 15 minutes the cupcakes needed to bake, he decided to make it ahead of time -- but then it was hot in the kitchen, so he put it in the fridge for a bit while he was making the cupcake batter.

But then there wasn’t quite enough white vinegar to sour two cups of milk with so he had to scramble to make up the difference with lemon juice, which required finding the citrus juicer, and meanwhile he forgot to switch on the kettle to boil the water, and _then_ the mixer splashed batter all over the counter after he added the eggs, canola oil, soured milk, vanilla, and hot water, and it was only when he was wiping up the sticky pale-yellow mess that he realized that was wrong because he was supposed to be making _chocolate_ cupcakes.

Frantic, he turned off the mixer and checked the recipe, and sure enough, the dry ingredients should have included three-quarters of a cup of cocoa. No, wait, he’s doubling the recipe, so, one and a half cups.

Muttering bad words under his breath, Eric darted into the pantry for the cocoa tin, dumped six quarter-cups of cocoa into the half-mixed batter, and turned the mixer on again. It puffed cocoa dust into his face, and he sneezed violently into the crook of his elbow.

 _This is what you get for not sticking to your strengths, Bittle_ , he lectured himself grimly. The whole thing was mortifying—what was he, eight years old?!

Eventually the batter was mixed and didn’t look _too_ wrong, and he got it poured into the waiting muffin pans (lined with parchment cupcake cups) and into the oven, and _then_ he remembered that the bowls of buttercream were still in the fridge.

So he got them out and, with a few false starts and a bit of swearing, put together the three-color icing coupler he’d bought for the occasion, then spooned blue, yellow, and white buttercream into the three icing bags and tied them up.

But now the cupcakes needed to come out of the oven, and of course were still hot and needed to cool, so shouldn’t the icing go back in the fridge now? Not for too long, of course, because after all it was, like, at least fifty percent butter, but it was hot in the kitchen and melted buttercream would _also_ be bad.

However long he left them in there, though, it seems like it _was_ too long, because now the cupcakes have cooled enough for frosting and he goes to test the icing flow on a dessert plate and _nothing comes out_ , no matter how hard he squeezes.

“Okay,” he says, and balances the icing-bag contraption carefully on the counter, and turns his back on it to get started on the many, _many_ dirty dishes.

 

Twenty minutes later, he tries again. This time the white icing looks pretty much the way it should, but the blue icing is all melty and the yellow comes out all stuttery and uneven, like … well, let’s just say Eric Richard Bittle has a LOT of cousins and has changed his share of new-baby diapers, and leave it at that.

What’s worse is that instead of holding its shape like it should, the icing just kind of … sags. In a couple of cases, it sags right over the side of the cupcake, and it looks really, really awful, and Eric is starting to really, really want to cry.

This is the kind of baking crisis about which he would normally consult Mama Bittle. The problem is, there’s no possible way he can explain to his mother the critical importance to his continued well-being of beautiful, delicious, _perfect_ desserts for Jack’s party. After all, Mama has seen Jack eat -- she’s aware that he’s got a big appetite, isn’t especially picky, and will eat, enjoy, and compliment you on pretty much anything you put in front of him -- and she’s been feeding whole teams of teenage football players for over two decades and while of course she takes pride in what she serves them for its own sake, it would never occur to her that a group of large, loud male athletes might care about the perfection, or not, of the cupcakes they’re about to stuff into their large, loud male faces. And it’s not like he can say, _Mama, I care because they’re_ Jack’s _team, and_ Jack’s _cupcakes for_ Jack’s _birthday, and he’s_ my _team and my most favorite person on the planet and he’s so good to me and I love him and want everything I do for him to be_ perfect _._

The perfectionism about cupcakes, she might understand; the part where her only son has been dating a gazillionaire professional _male_ athlete for an _entire year_ , likely not so much. She’d probably tell him to stick with his strengths and make mini-pies instead, _because you know how everyone loves your mini-pies, Dicky!_ , or to stick to one color of icing _because really, Dicky, sometimes less is more!_

She would not, in other words, understand why he _has_ to make Falconers cupcakes and they _have_ to be beautiful as well as delicious.

So: Eric and the cupcakes are on their own.

He leans on the edge of the counter for a bit of a think.

Chilling the icing bags wasn’t the answer, and it appears letting them warm up again wasn’t the answer either. And he knows in theory that re-beating buttercream can help you fix the consistency, but once you’ve put it in the piping bags, seems like that ship has pretty much sailed.

Maybe _combining_ chilling and warming was the problem? And if so, well, there are still three bowls half-full of blue, yellow, and white icing sitting on the counter, which haven’t been in the fridge and haven’t been warmed up again …

“OK,” Eric says out loud, because why not. “Let’s try that, then.”

He unhooks the piping-bag ties, spoons the rest of the icing into the bags, squeezes the air out as best he can, and ties them shut again.

“Here goes nothing.” He sets up just above the surface of a naked cupcake and squeezes gently, and--

And yes, this is it, _this_ is what he pictured when the idea of Falconers-themed cupcakes for Jack’s birthday bash first occurred to him. These perfectly asymmetrical swirls, yellow and blue and creamy white, coming to a point just off-centre on each velvety brown cupcake-top.

One cupcake, two, three, four, five, six...

The flow of icing-swirls squidges to a halt after a dozen beautiful cupcakes, leaving eighteen slightly to horrifically mangled ones and two dozen more still naked.

Which is when Eric realizes there’s no more icing.

Well. There’s icing on his fingers, and on his apron, and in blobs on the kitchen floor, and on the countertops, and squished out onto the testing plate, and in his hair, and melting on the stovetop, and stuck in the decorator tip, and also possibly in his ears and up his nose -- but the piping bags are squeezed flat, and the mixing bowls are empty.

Eric allows himself one small, restrained yowl of frustration. Then he takes a deep breath, loads up the dishwasher, starts it, and goes to get more butter out of the fridge.

His left foot sticks to the floor.

He’s barefoot, because it’s hot and Jack is Canadian so Eric feels awkward wearing shoes in Jack’s apartment, and Jack is a tidy person and cleans everything on a schedule so it’s not like (shudder) going barefoot in the Haus. But it appears he spilled chocolate cupcake batter on the floor at some point and didn’t notice and has been tracking it around the kitchen ever since, because now that he looks he sees there are brown smudges _everywhere_ , including -- he lifts up one foot, then the other -- the soles of his feet. There’s a dried streak of chocolate cupcake batter down the left leg of his shorts and onto the skin of his thigh, because apparently his apron has just given up on today, and something unidentified but sticky in his right eyebrow.

Eric sits right down on the floor, butter in hand, and laughs and laughs and laughs, because at this point it’s that or a whole lot of ugly-crying.

Fifteen minutes later, he hauls his ass up off the sticky ceramic tiles, pulls out his phone, and searches _buttercream cupcakes hot weather_ on YouTube like he should’ve done in the first place.

 

When Jack gets home, the kitchen counters are sparkling clean (as is the floor) and the cupcakes are as nice-looking as they’re ever going to get -- still not totally worthy of Jack’s birthday, in Eric’s opinion, but at least not _embarrassingly_ hideous -- and Eric, still sticky with a disgusting combination of sugar and flour and butter and dried or drying sweat, is putting away dishes and sniffling into his sleeve.

“Bits?” Jack calls from the front door. Eric hears his shoes fall on the tiles: left, then right. “Are you here? Whatever you’re making smells s’wawesome, bud.”

“It’s your birthday cupcakes,” Eric says, trying to sound cheerful and failing because he’s just _so. tired_. “They, um. I don’t really like how they came out, but. They should taste okay? I think? Wait, Jack, don’t hug me, I’m--”

The word _sticky_ comes out more like _shmmphhy_ , since Jack is hugging him anyway and his face is kind of squished against Jack’s broad, very nicely muscled chest and shoulder.

Jack pulls back a little, studies Eric’s face with a tiny thinking-frown, and then bends his head for a kiss. It’s a nice kiss, but they just saw each other this morning, and every day for the week before that, so it doesn’t have the kind of desperation in it that Jack’s kisses sometimes do.

“Let’s take a shower,” Jack says, decisive. “You’re all sticky, and I probably smell terrible, it’s like thirty-five degrees out there.”

Eric blinks at him for a second or two before Jack, rolling his eyes only a little, takes pity on him and adds, “I think that’s about ninety-five Fahrenheit.”

“So … cold shower, then?”

Jack (who does _not_ smell terrible, and almost certainly already showered in the locker room) pulls back a little further and gives Eric a very pointed up-and-down look. “That’s not _exactly_ what I had in mind,” he says, and waggles his eyebrows like the ridiculous dork he is.

Eric tries to chirp him, but before he can think of anything clever enough, he finds himself upside-down over Jack’s shoulder, so he swats Jack’s probably-heavily-insured hockey butt instead. Jack just chuckles, all the way to the shower.

  


They order in for dinner, because Jack decrees that Eric has spent enough time in the kitchen today and it’s too hot to turn on the stove again, and because Eric is too worn out to put up much of a fight. They eat pad thai and chicken green curry and salad rolls in front of the TV, bumping shoulders and stealing off each other’s plates and pretending to watch a documentary about the history of the doughnut (or, as both Jack and the apparently made-in-Canada documentary insist on spelling it, the _donut_ ).

Eventually they’re full and Eric’s getting sleepy and he cuddles close to Jack’s side, humming when Jack takes the hint and strokes his hair.

“So,” Jack says, after a minute or two. “Am I allowed to ask what happened with the cupcakes that got you so upset?”

Eric sits up, frowning. “I’m not upset, honey!” he says, too quick.

Jack looks at him.

Eric looks at his hands.

“It’s just,” he says, after a long minute. “It’s your birthday? And like Tater and Marty and Thirdy and Snowy and … and _everyone_ is coming? And last year I wasn’t here on your birthday and last year nobody knew about us and now everyone does and I just … I just want it to be good, you know?”

Jack kisses the top of Eric’s head, where the stupid annoying cowlick is that Jack’s so inexplicably fond of. “It’ll be great,” he says.

“But,” says Eric. “But … what if it’s not?”

“Bits.” Jack scooches his butt over a little ways, puts both hands on Eric’s shoulders, and hunches down to look him in the eyes. “Will you be there?”

“Well. Yeah, but--”

“And will there be stuff to eat?”

“Of course there will! But--”

“And will we get to wave goodbye to everyone and close the front door and go to sleep in the same bed tomorrow night?”

“Well, _yes_ , Jack, but--”

“Then it’ll be great. It’ll be _perfect_.”

“Jack, honey--”

“Bud, I love you and I love that you want to make my birthday special.” Eric takes a second to catch his breath at the casual, matter-of-fact way Jack says _I love you_ , like it’s obvious, like it’s just a _fact_. “But I feel like this is stressing you out, and I just … I need you to know that what’s gonna make my birthday special is you being here for it. Like we could go eat chicken sandwiches at Tim’s with a bunch of noisy teenagers at the next table and it’d still be the best birthday I ever had because I’d be with you.”

And, Lord, Eric’s been valiantly _not crying_ through all the frustrations and disasters of today but this is just. too. much. for anyone to be expected to handle.

Fortunately, Jack’s learned to tell the difference between sad crying and happy crying, and seems unfazed by Eric sobbing into his t-shirt and soggily mumbling _You are the actual worst, Jack Zimmermann_ , and _I love you so much_.

  


Snowy says, “Holy shit, Bitty, did you fucking _make_ these? Fuckin’ sweet, man!”

Gabby says, “You know, Marc-André’s birthday is coming up in September…”

Shitty says, “What do I gotta do to get theme cupcakes for _my_ birthday, Bits?”

Ransom and Holster do a complicated cupcake fistbump, and then smoosh cupcakes into each other’s faces; Jack shakes his head in despair.

Tater says, “Is itty-bitty Falconers cake!!! Tiny like B!!!” and eats three.

George eats one, slowly and thoughtfully, and then asks how much Eric would charge to make four dozen more for a donors-and-sponsors meet-and-greet she’s hosting before the home opener in October.

And Jack -- after the last guests have been waved off with tupperwares of leftovers and the empties are in the blue bin and the music from Eric’s phone via the Bluetooth speakers is quiet and the lights are off -- Jack reaches up to the top shelf of the cabinet to the left of the range hood and produces one last remaining cupcake on a plate, slightly melty, and he peels off the paper and they share it, bite by bite, and then Jack kisses the last of the buttercream off Eric’s lips and murmurs in his ear, “Best. Birthday. Ever.”

Out in the living-room he holds Eric gently against him, facing the big windows, and they sway to the barely audible music and they look out at the lights of Providence, and Eric thinks, _This is what I want. Just this. For the rest of ever._

And he must be more tipsy than he thought he was, because Jack chuckles softly and nuzzles his hair and says, so, so, quiet, “Me too, bud. Me too.”

**Author's Note:**

> \- Bitty's chocolate cupcake recipe is on page 334 of _Hershey's Best-Loved Recipes_ (Lincolnwood, IL: Publications International Ltd., 2000), which I received as a gift from my aunt maybe 10 or so years ago.  
>  \- The buttercream recipe is the one in [this blog post](http://www.rachaelray.com/blogs/index.php/2013/10/18/mini-vanilla-cupcakes-with-buttercream-frosting/).  
> \- HELLS YEAH the St-Martins named their son Marc-André. Even Falconers can be fans of Flower, yo. (And like, they probably played together in Juniors or something, c'mon.)  
> \- Bitty will low-ball his baking fee for George. Jack and Tater and Shitty will make sure he gets paid what he's worth. (George will let them think they win at negotiating, but was actually planning to pay him way more than what he suggested all along.)  
> \- Shitty will get Samwell-themed cupcakes for his next birthday, but Bitty will draw the line at putting weed in them.


End file.
